LXYIII 



LET me draw you a picture of a Hindoo rider. Imagine 

 this bedquilt individual on horseback. He has a turban of 

 Turkey red, marvellously wound in a hundred folds around 

 his head, and literally as big as a half-bushel basket ; a 

 pea-green comforter is thrown about him, and he wears a 

 pair of tight violet cotton trousers on legs without the 

 semblance of a calf ; while over his saddle a blue quilted 

 padding raises him far above his horse's back. His stir- 

 rup-leathers are wound with yellow cotton cloth, and a 

 pair of huge crimson shoes finish off his nether members. 

 Imagine his dark- brown skin, black piercing eyes, and a 

 long mustache and beard stained brick color, and combed 

 tmdjixatived in a side wise and upward curve, the like of 

 which one never sees except in a picture of Blue - beard ; 

 imagine him sitting a horse with so many and awkward 

 ways of going that he cannot be said to have any gait ex- 

 cept a walk a horse naturally of a dirty white, but touched 

 up with about a hundred spots of dull red paint all over 

 his body and legs, with a tail dyed green, and wearing a 

 broad blue bead necklace and a jangling silver chain ; add 

 to the man's equipment a small round inlaid shield of 

 about the size and defensive value of a tin dish-pan, and a 

 twelve-foot reed spear of equal offensive value ; imagine 

 all this internecine color carried off with an ingenuous equi- 

 poise and air of general and genuine self-satisfaction which 

 leads you to suppose that the man owns half the earth, 

 and you have a Eajput of distinction. He is really an im- 



